Diamond Spoons Tastes Cold
by Rosenqueen
Summary: In my past life, I was born with a diamond spoon in my mouth. Now, I'm born with a diamond spoon filled with slow acting poison rammed into my mouth. Thankfully, with the experience of being the sole heiress of a powerful political family, I should be equipped to handle life in its shinobi equivalent. Honestly, my life expectancy this time around does not seem promising. SI/OC
1. Prologue

**Diamond Spoons Taste Cold**

**Authors Note: Usual disclaimers apply. I made this after drowning myself in SI stories to procrastinate studying for my bar exams. Lovely. Reviews and criticisms greatly appreciated.**

* * *

**Prologue: Why we don't talk to strange beings who claim they're God.**

I remember crashing in my firm's nap room after the third consecutive day of working till 3 am on a complicated merger, before having to clock back in at 9 am the next day. It might have been the sleep deprivation, but now, I'm seeing a picture of a mouth in white, floating in front of me. On an all black background.

The black background I can still excuse since I know I'm supposed to be sleeping, and my eyes are supposed to be closed. When eyes are closed, no light comes in, ergo, everything is dark. Very logical, very reassuring.

_Blink_.

The white mouth were still there.

_Blink. Blink. _

It seems that it's very insistently floating, and it seems annoyed. Is this a weird stress induced dream? Or a hallucination? My eyes are open, everything is dark and there's an angry looking mouth floating in front of me.

If I had known this would have happened, I would have happily pawned off most of the work to the interns.

* * *

**_Congratulations! You've died due to overwork!_**

_Blink_. The mouth just moved and the sound of fireworks going off started playing.

... uh what?

**_You're dead. If you don't believe me, try looking down at your hands._**

I looked down to see my hands, but I saw nothing but more of the darkness. I tried looking around but nope, no hands, or arms. or elbows, or legs, knees or feet. There was a clear absence of a body. So I have no body? Why would I have no body?

**_Well what use are bodies for a dead spirit anyways? Your soul should have been sorted automatically with the system I've put in place, but obviously there's something off since I have to come here and sort you myself. _**

The mouth fell silent for a bit. I was stunned. I died from working at a LAW FIRM. How do you even die from dealing with paperwork? I'm not even dealing with convicts. Merger & Acquisition was supposed to be a very cushy department, with high pay, high benefits, and occasionally, high stress. Concentrated stress in short outburst mind you, but its not supposed to be fatal. Fatal are jobs in the military or the police, not solicitors in offices.

This is one strange hallucination, my co-workers must have slipped some of those hallucinogenic cookies into my snack box again.

**_AHA! I see the problem now. You didn't go to automatic processing because you're so... bland._**

_BLAND_? Alright, being a solicitor isn't exactly the most exciting job in the world, but the sheer amount of work does lead to very interesting information of the borderline absurd kind to be exact. Beyond my profession, I have a _wonderful_ and exciting life thank you very much.

**_Yes, your soul is bland. Blandest soul I've ever seen. It's so lacking in character I find it hard to believe that a few moments ago you were part of the living. Your soul is as bland as an old dead, stuck in limbo for centuries soul._**

_No one asked for your opinion mister 'I'm such a mysterious floating mouth.'_

**_You're not a particularly bad person, but you're not particularly good one either. Let's have a run through your personal history shall we?_**

Despite being mildly offended at being called bland, I'm still reeling on the thought that I am dead. I am at what appears to be at the afterlife, where I broke a system somewhere. Clearly in death, as I am in life, technology malfunctions when I'm anywhere at its vicinity.

I'm in the afterlife, talking to a floating mouth, who seems to have a flair for the dramatics if the sound of fireworks were anything to go by.

**_Oh hush, if you think your job as a solicitor was bad, imagine me having to oversee all souls, not some but ALL souls in this blank space for ETERNITY. At least you could retire. I need to work to get a bit of entertainment._**

Right, and somehow this is supposed to make the conversation less absurd. A talking, floating mouth is complaining about retirement plans.

**_Back to your personal history, you've had quite an interesting family. Asian. A military general for a father, and a startlingly successful business woman for a mother, and an only child to boot! Why, you've got the world on a platter. The public must love you._**

The sarcasm was highly unnecessary. I wanted to protest but I reminded myself that this... being somehow has authority over the rest of my stay in this afterlife. So I kept my mouth shut.

**_Clever move girl. I can't believe that with a back story that interesting, you've never actually done anything interesting with your life. Your life is basically a checklist for every milestone and expectation laid out by your family, without a single deviation_****_. You've met every expectation, ticked all the boxes, basically the 'other child' parents like to compare their kids to._**

Thanks. I like to set a standard.

**_But it means you've had no great passion, or ambition, or grand dreams. If you had chosen something ridiculously bad, like say take over the world, you would have at least had a life with a bit of flavour, _****_and you could have easily been judged by the system. Every accomplishment, or decision you've made has such_****_ little influence from your soul that you might as well have not been born into this life in the first place._**

And this way of living is horrible why? I've always thought that avoiding trouble was the smart thing to do.

**_Smart doesn't solve my problem, know-it-all. _**

I rolled my eyes. Could I even roll my eyes without a body? Whatever, the sentiment stands.

**_It's a common issue I've been seeing lately with this timeline. There's a growing lack of faith, emotions are mostly deadened, with a vast majority of people lacking any sort of individuality or ambition. _**

Welcome to modernisation, whatever you are. I'll just call you 'Being X'.

**_Usually I just send these souls back to repeat their lives with a small twist, but clearly it's not helping. Your file makes you seem smart enough. Girl, humour me. What do you think is the reason for this mess._**

Somehow, this seems to be like a trick question a senior partner gives an intern when they need a break from a case. Nevertheless, after being raised to meet every expectation, I actually gave some thought to this question.

On faith, due to science providing an explanation for nearly everything, the miracles of the past seem more like myths than anything _real_. A majority of the population nowadays have great standards of living so they're not exposed to some 'great threat and hope' scenario that usually inspires great faith like in history or in fiction. The whole, neutral living dead souls thing is pretty much anyone's guess.

The mouth stays silent, but purses thoughtfully. In hindsight, this was red flag number 1.

**_Hmm, so you're saying the current situation breeds complacency leading to these BUGS popping up?_**

Computer terminology is definitely not my forte, but that's an apt summary. This doesn't mean that you should plunge the world into chaos though! Peace is good for the growth of humanity, and everything is great in life with all the convenience and bells and whistles.

**_Good for humanity or not, this situation causes problems when they're dead. All living things die, ergo, this problem being solved is the Greater Good, and it MUST be fixed regardless of how you feel about it, human. _**

... I seem to have caused a major problem.

WAIT! Even if you change anything it doesn't guarantee that it would fix the problem. Like you've said I'm just the soul of a human-

**_A human with a silver- no diamond spoon in her mouth. If you consider that the average human, you're very out of touch aren't you._**

Thats my past life and with how _bland_ you say my soul is, it shouldn't even effect the characteristics of my soul, but I digress. Back to my main point, there is no guarantee that plunging the world to chaos would solve the issue. If it fails, not only will you have more work with the influx of the dead souls coming into the afterlife, its unnecessary suffering to the world or could even lead to a mass extinction scenario.

When the mouth started grinning like a loon I should have known I just majorly fucked up again.

This was red flag number 2.

**_That's a logical argument. Your legal training seems to have some use after all. _**

The mouth grinned so widely it showed nearly all of its teeth. Red flag number 3: the huge thunderclap that sounded eerily like an applause.

**_I've decided on what to do with you human, you'll be my test run for this solution. I'll drop you off to a chaotic world and observe whether or not the world will change your mindset. Oh this will be fun, I'll have something to watch now. _**

Wait what?! I didn't volunteer for this! Can't you just reincarnate me like every other weird soul that grabs your attention.

**_I can, but I choose not to. HA! It'll be good for you too, teach you how to live and all. I'm a nice God, so I'll even drop you into a world you'll be familiar with. Don't think to much about any pre-existing knowledge you remember, go wreck havoc or whatever, you won't destroy the world... maybe._**

MAYBE?! YOU'RE NOT BEING A VERY RELIABLE OR ENCOURAGING GOD AT THE MOMENT! HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT THAT'S WHY PEOPLE HAVE FAITH ISSUES LATELY?

**_HAHAHA! I would die to see the look on that sage's face when he realises what happened, of course I'll make sure he'll only figure it out once your natural lifespan there is used up. Good luck kid, it's been nice chatting with you. Go do some crazy stuff so I can get good reality TV - I mean so I can make greater observations to solve this dead soul thing. _**

Well fuck you too Being X.

Shit, has he been reading my mind this entire time?! PRIVACY PLEASE that's a human right!

The last thing I remember from this episode was the sound of booming laughter coming out of a hysterical, twitching mouth, and the sensation of falling into a hole.

If any of this dream is real, I should learn how to not open my mouth and spit words out like its going out of fashion.

* * *

When I next opened my eyes, it was still dark. The difference is that it feels very warm and comfortable, like I'm floating in one of those sensory deprivation pools. If I'm in a sensory deprivation pool, it would make that strange conversation with a talking, floating mouth a hallucination. I wish it were a hallucination. If wishes were that easily granted, no one would ever do anything but wish everything they ever wanted to existence.

Sadly, my hardworking brain decided to remind me that I still distinctly remember how I passed out in the office, where we clearly do not have a sensory deprivation tank in the nap room.

Floating around like this makes everything seem timeless. The fact that my mind is still very aware, it gave me a chance to look back at the previous madness. The only daughter of the general is now dead. I am technically a new person now, with hopefully, a new family to look forward to. Of course this is on the assumption that whatever happened with Being X was true. Regardless, on the off chance that it was true, I took my time remembering the memories of my previous life.

It took a while to accept that I died, and that I am very permanently separated from my past. However, the fact that I accepted that I died, and may reincarnate somewhere, somehow, sometime doesn't mean that there's no feelings over being separated from my old life. Despite the cool nature of my previous family's relationship, which is natural considering how much of a workaholic, introvert my parents are, we do love and care for each other. Even if it meant that we enjoyed our times together by sitting in the same room, ignoring each other while doing our own thing.

Seeing that Being X mentioned "a chaotic world", the nature my parent's respective jobs ensures that I am very well versed with the reality of dirty politics found anywhere there's people. Chaotic implies unrest, which implies intrigue and masterminds with plots so convoluted I would be lost if I was never taught on how to handle it. It's comforting to know that I still remember the lessons my father taught me about his job, and in identifying the intentions of people.

* * *

With that analysis out of the way, I decided to just lean back and enjoy myself. The warmth of my surroundings sometimes fluctuated, and the gentle swaying made me sleepy. On some days I can even hear a muffled voice talking to me. Can't make out the words to save my life, but the tone was so gentle and soothing, it eventually became my lullabies whenever it pops up.

I spent my days thinking, day-dreaming, submerging myself in my memories, and sleeping. Basically like the retirement dream I envisioned the second I took up my job. Idyllic and relaxing. The only way this could get any better would be if the place wasn't so dark all the time, had a bit of scenery to look at. Blue skies, green grass, forests and lakes, like the kinds you see in Switzerland, that kind of scenery would be best.

Of course I had to open my big mouth. I just couldn't be happy with what I've got now can't I.

Soon after I wanted light, I saw light. A small hole of light, a very very small hole but lo and behold there's light. If it was just harmless light, it would have been fine, but then the calm floating became wild, like rapid currents in a river used for white water rafting. Everything swirled towards the light. The whole dark space started compressing and I was swept away with the cramping and the rushing towards the light.

There was confusion, a lot of pain, and I thought that I was actually dying again, but this time instead of peaceful dying after passing out from overwork, this was more of a death by drowning variety. If I wasn't fearing for my life, I might have made a quip about how I can't be dying since I'm not actually alive. But again, I'd like to see someone keep calm when their whole world started spinning like mad while feeling like I'm being compressed, or vacuum packed into a tube.

Oh god, oh god this is so painful, why is this happening? It was nice and comfortable before, and now it became so tight I feel suffocated. Air, oh god I need air, did I just breather in water?! Where the hell was I that I could be BREATHING in WATER this whole time.

As if all this was not terrifying enough, my eyes started itching. (Eyes? I have a body now?) I tried blinking it out like every time an eyelash fell in, but then the itching grew worse. My eyeballs felt like someone poured itching powder, then decided to pour in oil then lighting it on fire. It burned and I wanted to cry, but then more water came into my mouth choking me.

This is terrible. Everything is terrible. Confused, afraid, and in a lot of pain, I closed my eyes in a panic, bit my lip to stop from screaming and hoped for the best.

Then I saw light.

Everything was so bright and clear, and god why is everything a blinding white. The burning in my eyes is still going strong, and everything is so noisy. There's a high pitch screaming, like someone's crying miserably and that noise is giving me a migraine. Perks of having a body is the realisation that you can have migraines. I felt someone grabbing my legs and flipping me into the air. Flailing like a fish out of water, I heard a slap and the screaming voice grew louder.

There were so many strangers, and all of them were giant. I clearly saw a very tired woman, upside down, before the hand on my leg turned me right side up again. She looked like she was on a hospital bed, I'm at a hospital? The woman had black hair, pale skin and had a really beautiful face. Beside the bed as another giant, carrying a young toddler with very twinkling eyes. The giant was a man with really dark brown hair, and a stern expression that now looks kinda shocked, with his mouth hanging open.

Now that I think about it, the pretty lady on the bed also looks kinda alarmed.

"Her eyes!" She gasped. "How is that possible"

... Is there something wrong with my eyes? Clearly I'm not blind with how clear and colourful everything looks.

Thats Japanese. Okay, I kinda know that language since I has to learn that when I was younger on top of my family's native Chinese. At least Being X had the decency to drop me in a country where I don't have to work like mad to understand the language.

The world then looked sort of woozy, with all the colours blending together. I only vaguely remember the feeling of being held by strong, slender arms before passing out.

I now know that there is a very good reason babies don't remember their birth. Being born is very traumatising.

And isn't that the biggest understatement of the century.

Much later, I realised that the shrieking, migraine inducing sound, actually came from me.

* * *

The next time I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the world was no longer in the HD view I thought it was when I was first born. Everything was in an odd sepia tone, like vintage photography, except everything was so blurry that all I could see were vague shapes. I nearly thought I was colourblind until I remembered that I'm still a baby, and immediately after birth, infant eyes' are not developed enough to have HD, full colour spectrum vision that I remembered enjoying in my previous life.

The next thing I noticed was that I was being carried in the arms of someone. Again, the blurry vision doesn't help with identification, but I'm assuming it's the new parents of this life. Previous experience dictates that even if the family I was reborn in was the wealthy or noble type, nannies don't immediately carry recently born babies since parents are still marvelling at their child.

"You really gave Hahaue a scare just now" I felt someone kiss my forehead. It's the nice voice I've been listening to!

I cooed in what I hope was the direction of my new mother's face. I ended up blowing spit bubbles instead. Great, I have to relearn all my motor skills then.

"To think that she activated the sharingan at birth... this has never happened before." The deep voice sounded dumbfounded. "If the elders ever heard about this..."

"Anata, the elders will not, and can not know about this." Mother's voice interrupted firmly. "She's our daughter and she was just born yesterday, I will not have the elders place unrealistic expectations on another one of my children, I will not have it!"

Sharingan? That sounds familiar. Lets see, where have I heard that word before. On a side note, I'm glad I can at least hear the conversation to figure out whose who.

"I don't think I can even hide this information from them, there were too many people that saw what happened yesterday." My father tried to calm my mother. "I'm more worried about her passing out, her chakra reserves are too small to even support the drain."

Chakra. That's also another familiar word. Now where have I heard the words chakra and sharingan together.

"... We'll just have to do our best to protect our child then."

There was a knocking noise before the sound of something rubbing against wood. A sliding door?

"Ara, Itachi chan, come in. Hahaue just finished talking with your Chichiue, come and look at your younger sister."

Then there was the soft pitter-pattering of socked feet on the wooden floors. When it the thuds stopped, I felt my body being lowered slightly, but still securely in the arms of my mother. A new human shaped blob walked into view. This must be the toddler I saw being carried by the man I now know is my father.

Wait.

Itachi, sharingan, chakra. Three specific words and it felt like it hit me like lightning.

"**_I'll drop you off to a chaotic world_**."

"**_I'll even drop you into a world you're familiar with_**."

"**_Sage_**."

Being X reincarnated me into the Naruto world.

"Her name is Yuuki, Uchiha Yuuki."

As a member of the Uchiha clan.

"Hello Yuuki." A soft voice and a hand tentatively touched my head. "I'm your onii san"

As Uchiha Itachi's little sister.

He reincarnated me into a similarly old and powerful family that has issues, gave me an older brother with a sibling complex so large that it would be considered crippling in my previous life, and generally had one of the most devastating tragic plot of epic proportions I've ever read in any type of literature.

An actual tragedy that has a very high chance of becoming reality.

Seriously, fuck you Being X.

I heard booming laughter in my ears.


	2. Chapter 1

**Diamond Spoons Tastes Cold**

**Authors Note: Usual disclaimers apply. Thanks to everyone who favourited, placed this story on alerts and reviewed! I will do my best to keep writing. If there's any typo or weird grammar feel free to point it out. Chances are I've missed it during the proof-reading. I will update the chapters accordingly. I added a glossary of terms I used in this chapter in case some readers are confused about it. Please tell me if there's any other terms I've missed.**

* * *

**Chapter 1: I may have gained a brother complex**

With how long it took me to figure out where I was reincarnated despite the glaringly obvious clues, I must seem like a Class A idiot.

In my defence, the only reason it took me so long to connect the dots was because I was still reeling over how I just exited out of another person. I don't think anything in the world could have ever prepared me for that. No one expects to be born. By the time our brains were developed enough to have any semblance of self, we were already born.

Descartes' "I think therefore I am" had never made more sense than it has now.

Right, so let's see what I have to work with here.

1\. Is currently a very small infant

2\. Is a younger sister to someone who would cause untold emotional trauma to me, in the future, under the delusion that it was for my own good.

3\. Is it just me or the air here is a bit -

* * *

… Did I just… fall asleep mid thought? How and why would I - right, infant body, infant brain. The brain of a baby isn't developed enough at this stage to actually support my mind. Do you know how infuriating it is to have the capacity for thought, but you can't actually finish thinking all your ideas through because your body is failing to keep up. The thing holding me back isn't an actual obstacle I can do a quick fix on now. How am I supposed to think of a game plan to deal with the mess that is the future of my current life if I can't even think when -

* * *

And I fell asleep again.

I'm furious. This sleeping in mid thought is fast getting old. As I fumed, there was a strange prickling sensation running around my skin. At first it was faint, kind of like the pins of needles I get when I sat at a seiza position for too long. It wasn't that serious and thus, easily ignored.

Overtime, as my frustration grew, the feeling worsened. Eventually, I feel like I've been scrubbed raw all over with sandpaper, and even the air hurts. I wanted to cry. I did cry, but god how could tears falling down my cheeks feel so painful?

My body shook, but the friction from the cloth underneath me made everything hurt more.

My mouth opened to wail, but everything just felt so horrible. The wails were loud at first, but as the pain grew it became little squeaks.

You know, I would really appreciate it if my baby brain decided to knock me out cold right now, so at least I don't have to deal with this sensory overload.

I heard the door slide open, the thudding of feet before seeing a little blob peering over me.

* * *

It's been two days since his new little sister was born. Itachi was still marvelling at how small, and pink she was. Are babies supposed to be that pink? It was hard for his mind, genius or not, to wrap around the fact that he too was that small two years ago. Or was that two and a half?

Compared to him, his little sister looked more like a moderately sized stuffed toy. If it wasn't for the fact that she made noises and had some small, independent movements, he would be hard pressed to believe that she was a living, breathing, person. Before she was born, mother and father made it clear that he was a big brother now, and as a big brother, it was his res-pon-si-bi-lity to take care of her.

His parents laid her down in a crib in the room next to theirs. They called it a nur-se-ry. The last time he checked, little Yuuki was still sleeping heavily. She didn't even notice that there's drool on the side of her mouth. Mother and Father were still in the living room after coming back from the hos-pi-tal, and mother still looked tired, while father had to start preparing something to eat. If Itachi was being honest with himself, he would admit that he wants to make a fuss so his mother cooked instead, since father's food was … eh, but he's a big brother now and has to be good since mothers' so tired.

Seeing that the last time he saw his sister felt like hours ago, Itachi, decided to slip out of the living room to take a peek at his sister. As he walked down the hallway, he heard some soft squeaks that slowly grew louder as he came closer to the nur-se-ry.

His sister must have woken up! That means he gets to play with her! Feeling more excited than he ever had in his brief but important life, he all but ran inside the room and went to the side of the crib. He's still a little short, so he can't quite peer over the crib and get a clear look at his sister, but Itachi was nothing but determined. Furrowing his eyebrows a little, Itachi wholeheartedly focused on climbing up the crib to get a better view of his sister. His hands gripped the wooden bars tightly before he attempted to lift himself up on the small ledge. Slipping, he stubbornly tried again, succeeding on the second try to be stably up above the ground, and in a much better position to lean over the crib.

The swaddled, pink, fleshy baby had a scrunched up face. She's crying? Why was she crying? Upset, Itachi tried to look around the crib to see why his sister was sad. She looked terrible, like she's hurt.

"Chichiue! Chichiue! Help!" Itachi shouted in a panic. "Yuuki-chan's crying! She's hurt."

His father all but flew into the room. Mother, with the sheer exhaustion on her face followed after. His father then tried picking her up, but the bundle ended up shaking more. His sister's face looked nothing like the cute, pink giggling one Itachi remembered a day ago. Instead, it now looked an angry red, with deep lines from how strongly she's scrunching it up.

"Itachi, go with your Hahaue, we need to take Yuuki to the hospital."

Itachi ran.

Had it not been for the panic caused by his little sister, his parents would have realised that this moment was yet another testament of Itachi's genius. What other toddler would be able to control his chakra so precisely, as to help him stick and climb up the crib's wooden rails.

* * *

When I came to, my body feels like its aching all over. My nose is assaulted by the sharp sting of disinfectants. My skin no longer feels as raw I, and in the distance, there are three giant, blurry, blobs. This hazy world view is slowly getting on my nerves. It's irritating how I can barely see anything, especially when I'm stressed and cranky.

One of the blobs moved a smaller blob attached to it closer and closer to me, before stopping a few centimetres from my face. This close, I realised that the blob looked roughly like a hand. A hand covered by a semi-transparent blur. Was it iryo-ninjutsu?

If it's iryo-ninjutsu, then I'm at the hospital?

On another note, all the stuff you hear about how chakra from iryo-ninjutsu should feel comfortable, warm and soothing? Well, they're all lies.

The moment that glow appeared, my whole body starts itching and tingling like crazy again. Before my skin starts feeling raw enough that slightly moving air feels like knives again, I gave a very angry shout. To re-emphasise how much I do NOT want that glowy hand anywhere near me, I did my best to swat the damn thing away, before realising that my parents had me swaddled in a blanket. So I ended up flailing instead of the very authoritative baby slap I was envisioning.

Thankfully, the medic was smart enough to remove the offending hand away. The raw, itchy sensation eased up some, but it was still so, so uncomfortable, especially when everything feels so chilly. Then the hand came back. I tensed up, and readying another angry shout before I realised that the itching stopped, and everything gradually felt warmer, and better. Still eyeing the hand suspiciously, I slowly relaxed.

"As suspected, Fugaku-sama, Mikoto-sama, it seems like your daughter's condition is caused by an imbalance in her chakra"

"What do you mean by a chakra imbalance? If it's just an imbalance, the effects shouldn't be so severe."

"More specifically, the imbalance is caused by a very skewed ratio of spiritual to physical energies greatly favouring the spiritual side." The voice of the medic-nin let out a sigh. "She has an abnormally large amount of spiritual energy, it's practically dwarfing her physical energy."

I heard the sound of wood splintering.

"On the bright side, it's a very strong indicator that your daughter's mind would develop quickly. She could be as prodigious as your son." The medic-nin continued, as if to calm the tension from the diagnosis.

"The chakra of Uchiha's on average skews towards spiritual over physical energy, but there hasn't been a case in the clan similar to what's happening to my daughter." Well, this is new information to me.

"Which is why this is so disconcerting, even factoring in her Uchiha heritage, she has such a large excess of spiritual energy that it's practically oozing out of her. From her strong reaction against yin-release techniques like the mystic palm, she also suffers from a heightened sensitivity towards spiritual energy." The medic-nin seems hesitant. I'm more concerned about what it means for my future. Does this mean that I am unable to become a shinobi? In a world filled violence, and in this particular clan, being unable to become a shinobi may as well have been a death sentence.

"What is promising is that she reacts well towards chakra with a greater proportion of physical energy." Seriously, couldn't you have led with that. Who can I complain to about the medic-nin's bedside manners?

"In the best case scenario, the severity of the imbalance should reduce as she grows older. I would suggest either a stronger emphasis on physical conditioning when her body is old enough to train routinely and safely, or to teach her more jutsus in the future, that requires a greater concentrations of spiritual energy like iryo-ninjutsu or genjutsu to try and use of the excess energy."

This conjuncture doesn't help much. Would an excessively strong yin-chakra make it more difficult for me to learn taijutsu? or is the impact so severe that it would impede me using my body even for day to day civilian life? or hopefully, it just requires me to specialise in taijutsu or genjutsu as a shinobi so I won't have to feel like everything is cutting me? Seriously, Being X, before dropping me into this world, shouldn't you ensure that there's no crippling problems about my survival, beyond the sword of Damocles that's the Uchiha Massacre?

What's with this HELLISH level of difficulty. I'm not asking you to make it extremely easy, but couldn't you have given me a more AVERAGELY difficult, at least by shinobi standards, life?!

"For now, its strongly advised that your daughter isn't left alone for any period of time. Ideally, she should be kept close to sources of chakra that has a strong yang component to soothe her."

Isn't the Kyuubi half that's going to be sealed into Naruto the Yang half? Wouldn't that make Naruto the perfect safety blanket for me? Seeing that Itachi still looks no where near 6 years old, Naruto wouldn't have been born yet. Who knows, maybe his parents weren't even married yet.

There was a long pause after that.

"Since this is a rare condition, what's your professional opinion on why our daughter could be harmed by the imbalance? When we first discovered the symptoms, there was no yin-release techniques, or even anything giving out yin chakra anywhere near her."

"Well this is just a theory, but assuming that her body's natural limit for storing chakra, is only slightly greater than her current available physical energy, the massive excess of spiritual energy is simply expelled out of her body and into her surroundings due to the body's self-preservation instincts." The medic-nin seemed pause for a bit, as if restructuring his thoughts. "We could conclude that what's harming her isn't the actual excess spiritual energy she produces naturally, but more the high concentration of yin-chakra near her immediate surroundings. On that note, it may be even more effective for those around her to continuously expel yang-chakra into her surroundings, to counteract the amount of yin-chakra she is producing."

"In short, the spiritual energies inside her isn't doing any damage, it's the yin rich environment that's the problem."

"Thank you for your help Sano-sensei."

"No problem at all, it's my job."

"Before you leave, it would be best to schedule another appointment in a months time so we can check that the proposed treatment plan is helpful for Yuuki-hime. It is likely that these check ups would be routine, better safe than sorry. However, if she's experiencing another episode even with the treatment plan, feel free to come earlier, this time, through the office doors."

There was an awkward silence after that. I can already imagine how we got here in the first place, presumably as all ninjas do, through the window on the side of the building. Can you imagine a normally dignified Uchiha couple barging in through the window? It's almost as disconcerting as the time I watched an episode of Boruto and saw Hyuuga Hisashi fawn over his grandkids.

To my parent's credit, they didn't make a single sound.

Itachi softly coughed.

Ever since that day, my parents have never left me alone. If they were busy with their jobs, at the very minimum Itachi would be there to accompany me. Mentioning Itachi was kind of a moot point, since the moment he filled in the blanks from that conversation, we became less two individual people, and more a single unit. Despite the whole "don't coddle your children" bit of being a shinobi parent, this incident was a large enough scare that leaving me alone with only Itachi around was more of a rarity than the standard. They've got older, more responsible people than my two year old brother radiating chakra as they watch over me.

It may sound like I'm being smothered, but between that or feeling like I'm being given a thousand cuts, I'd take being smothered any day.

* * *

Life as a baby was much simpler after that. I slept. I ate, and wasn't that a can of worms I do not want to open. I attempted to plot, but ended up with an impromptu nap instead. There were two parts of being a baby that I wasn't handling very well. It's already very reasonable that I limited my issues to just two areas. The first was a very respectable problem. There's just no method of effective communication. Other than tugging some part of a person's body, conditional to them actually carrying me, or crying, or giggling, or blowing spit bubbles, or attempt speaking but ending up saying 'Aaaa!', 'Uuu!' or 'Yaaa!' there was just nothing. My body isn't even developed enough to try an attempt at butchering the Japanese language toddler style. I actually need teeth for that.

The second problem was more… humiliating. Bear with me for this. No matter how accepting I am about dying and being reincarnated, it doesn't change the fact that in less than a year, I went from a fully functional, high flying adult with a complicated job to a very young, unable to even control my own … waste disposal, baby. The first time I had consciously - for a lack of any better descriptors- crapped myself in my nappies, my brain just decided to have a shut down.

I am ashamed to admit that a bit after that, I threw a tantrum of epic proportions out of sheer panic over how could this be happening to me. The thought of having to crap my nappies, likely multiple times a day, for a minimum of at least 1 or 2 years just made me hysterical. On a side note, the downside of being a baby with overly developed mental capacity in comparison to the body, is the ability to overthink yourself to hysterics. I cried, screamed, screeched. If I had enough control over my arms I would most definitely throw things at a wall. The worst part is how these emotions just keep coming and I can't even make anyone understand me since I'm STILL just a baby.

The meltdown was so swift and devastating that it startled poor Itachi, who prior to this mess, was doing his brotherly duty of teaching me to reach for the stuffed cat he was dangling above my head.

The stuffed cat landed on my face.

I am not amused. So I screamed my head off.

"Chichiue! Something's wrong with Yuuki again." He shouted out.

Chichiue? Where's mother? No, Itachi, go get mother not father! I may be a baby now, but if I have to get my nappies changed by an adult, I would rather it be done by an adult woman instead of a man!

Father flew into the room the second Itachi finished his sentence. It's like one second, he was by the door, then the next, he was right in front of me, picking me up in his arms. No words could describe how disgusting it feels to have your own waste squashed up against you by that motion. I kept wailing, and all this bloke did was just hover his hands around me.

No you nimrod, I want a nappy change!

Father brought out a bottle to my mouth and I want to scream. I want a nappy change. A NAPPY CHANGE!

Oh my god. This is driving me up the wall. Father just seems as perplexed and confused over how I swatted the bottle away. He looked at Itachi. Itachi looked back at him before they both looked back at me. I can't talk to the guy. I can't gesture at my nappies. I can't bloody communicate my need for a nappy change since I, physically, can't speak. My brother being clueless, fine he's like what, 2 years old? But Fugaku? He's the head of this village's police force and he can't figure out that I need a nappy change. I bet mother is the one who usually handles stuff like this. If she were here, she would probably place me in a new pair before I could even blink.

I honestly never hated the patriarchy more than in this moment.

When having a baby, the least you could do is to know the basics of baby care. Changing nappies is most definitely a basic skill.

There was a growing sense of panic inside me, which makes me cry louder. It became a pretty vicious cycle, of panic, crying, with more panic and more crying. The emotions just kept building on top of each other, and there was a growing pressure on my head.

I just want a nappy change!

Like a snap, I felt something rushing out of me before spreading out to the whole room. My father seemed to somehow get the message, and the panic greatly receded from within me. He quickly took off the soiled nappy, cleaned and put me in a new pair. I stopped my tantrum and the panic attack, and just stared at him in disbelief.

Did… did I just discover ninshū, because my father was clueless about how to check for soiled nappies?

This has to be another fever dream.

On the bright side, I can now 'talk' to other people. My father and I just had a long look at one another, and I can feel that as one, we decided that we will NEVER speak of this incident to anyone.

Really, discovering ninshū because I crapped myself. I don't think this was what that sage planned for when he spread out chakra to everyone.

Still feeling very unsettled by this, tantrum. I just kinda flopped on the bed the moment my father placed me back into the crib. Itachi then started patting my head with chakra, making me feel all fuzzy inside. He kept repeating the motion while saying "its okay now" over and over again until I calmed down.

It's eerie how he stopped exactly when I calmed down.

… I should probably work on how to control this ninshū or I'll never have any privacy in this life.

I actually feel kinda guilty towards my brother. None of this was his fault, but he still got caught in the aftermath and is doing his best to take care of me. For that reason, and partially to regain my lost pride (I mean really, an adult throwing a temper tantrum?), I resolved to only make a fuss whenever I was hungry, or when I soiled myself, or when I'm in pain. I strove to be the most calm and understanding baby a family could have.

Do I feel guilty towards my parents though? Not really, I mean they already had prior experience in raising a child and they still chose to have another. This type of tantrums is actually quite normal. Instead, it's probably weirder if I never raised hell as a baby. Glancing at my brother, and seeing how he's still very attentively patting my head, abnormal baby title or not, I resolutely decided no more. Since I already had one meltdown, even if I don't have another in the duration of being a baby, I'm sure my parents would just assume that I am a naturally well behaved child… right?

* * *

Turns out, when you're not screaming and crying your head off, there's a startling amount of energy for a baby to focus on other things like playing with my brother, or making a mess of, well, everything. With how little I can't actually do, I simply had to look at the bright side and focus on what I can actually do. Like the time I projectile vomited on the tatami in the living room because father forgot to burp me after feeding. The look on my mother's face before she calmly skewered my father was pure gold.

I can't wait until I can crawl. Imagine the sheer chaos I can make. The best part? As a baby no one would even think to scold me. All I need to do is give them the 'confused watery puppy eyes' and everyone would just coo at me. When I say everyone, I mean everyone, even if Fugaku would rather die than admit it.

After a few months of this routine, my eyesight has improved enough that I feel more comfortable interacting with the world. It really helps when I can actually see. Turns out, shinobi babies have a much faster developmental speed in general. It hasn't even been half a year, but I can already see clear shapes and nearly full RGB colours. Not only that, the treatment raised by the medic-nin was a success! The itching, stabbing sensation has at most become a mild tingle, and I never had an episode anywhere near as bad as my first.

Mother's maternity leave seems to be up though, since on most days, I no longer see her around the house as often. Itachi is always with me though. He's always hovering any type of colourful toys above me just a little bit beyond my reach in the name of training. I think he's trying to prepare me to gain enough strength to crawl towards him. Times like this, I'm reminded of how great of a genius my brother is.

Today, my father left for work early in the morning. Before my mother left, she placed me down on the tatami floor of the living room and tasked Itachi with keeping an eye on me until our babysitter arrives. Apparently, she asked one of the clan members to look after us, but which one, I don't quite remember. She left the shoji doors facing the garden open to let in the sunlight and to air out the house, before giving us each a kiss on our foreheads. She's been gone for a while now, but no one seems to be coming.

Instead of thinking about that, I focused on rolling over onto my side instead. Itachi seems to deem that I have mastered reaching up for a toy, so now he places the toy next to me instead of above me. Is this his four step training plan to teach me how to crawl?

Step 1: build arm strength from stretching and reaching up.

Step 2: learn how to turn to the side.

Step 3: learn how to turn over to my belly.

Step 4: learn how to move forwards.

That thought made me giggle a bit. It may seem impossible that a 2 year old had such skills, but then again, this is Itachi. Seeing my giggle, he gave out an encouraging smile and shook the toy harder.

"Just a little bit more Yuuki!" He encouraged.

Okay, I just need to turn my body to a side. I strained my muscles to lift of my shoulder, then my leg, then a part of my chest, and… I fell flat on my back. I peeked over at my brother, he just ruffled my hair gently and the smile never slipped off his face. Alright, just another try. This time I tried to build up a bit of momentum by rocking side to side before launching myself. Just when I was about to go for it, there was a really loud slam. It startled both Itachi and I so badly that it undid whatever progress I made with the rocking, while Itachi jumped up in alarm.

"I'm so sorry I'm late Mikoto-sama! Just now granny misplaced her cane after breakfast with her friends so I had to go all over the compound to find it, after that Yuri-chan's cat got stuck in a tree and… ." A very panicked voice shouted from the foyer.

… What kind of excuse is that? At least try to make it sound believable.

Itachi still looked very unsettled with the loud noise. It's a bit alarming how easily he startles. I wonder if that's a common trait with the Uchiha. If it was, it would be the perfect explanation as to why so many of our clan members are attached to nin-cats. The look on Itachi's face is actually quite funny since his eyes were open so wide, making him look very much like the young toddler he actually is. What I would do to have a camera right now.

"Mother left 3 hours ago." Itachi warily replied.

… This guy is at least 3 hours late. Will he even be a reliable babysitter?

Doubt, is a very easy emotion to transmit through ninshū, and surprisingly, so is exasperation. I only realised what was happening when I saw Itachi give a full on frown, and how there was nothing from this interaction that would give me such strong feelings of resignation.

"Ah! Crap." Cue an even heavier frown on Itachi's face. His eyebrows furrowed even deeper. "I'm really, really sorry Itachi-bo, but look! I at least remembered to bring you some dango this time."

He's bribing my brother with sweets? Hah! He must not know my brother very well then, there's no way my amazing, responsible and mature-for-his-age brother would be bought out by some - … what? Itachi? Why am I getting the sense that you're feeling conflicted about the bribe?

"What flavour is it?" He asked after a long pause. It was so long, they voice finally finished changing his outdoor shoes for his indoor ones, and made his way into the living room from the hall. I still can't see his face, but I can see that he's wearing a very bright shade of dark blue trousers.

"I have three sticks of hanami-dango and two sticks of mitarashi-dango. Which one would you like?" The babysitter made his way to us and sat cross legged on the floor after placing a plastic bag down. When I looked at his face, he wore bright orange goggles on top of his head.

Uchiha Obito?

"... I'll take the mitarashi-dango then."

"Ara, is this Yuuki-hime?" He turned to look at me, and carried me in his arms. "It's very nice to meet you Yuuki-hime. I'll be taking care of both Itachi-bo and you for a bit today. Don't worry though! I've been doing this for Itachi-bo since he was born" He gave a very bright laugh, and shot me a large smile. I cooed back in response.

Obito looks so young now. He's probably around 8-9 years old judging from a lack of hitai-ate. Cheerful, hopeful and excitable. It's hard to believe that one day he would go insane with grief to the point that he would make the world live in an eternal illusion to escape reality. Even knowing what he'd do in the future, it's hard to dislike such a happy looking guy. It helps that he's handling both of us so well. Bribing my brother with sweets helped him gain back some of his face that he lost from being late.

"Alright! So in the plan that Mikoto-sama left, Itachi-bo should be doing some stretching and light exercises in the garden." Obito looked at my brother expectantly. My brother looked back, drinking his tea and slowly munching on his dango. This staring competition stretched out for a while before Obito wilted.

"Itachi-bo don't look at me like that. I know I was late but we should at least try to go with your mother's plans for the day? How about this, I'll buy you another 5 sticks of an-dango? What do you say? Okay?" Obito pleaded with my brother. Feeling the sense of desperation from him, I tried to project a calming emotion towards him. I then looked at my brother and pointed to the garden outside the shogi doors and went "Ugah! Gah!" and squirmed like I was miming going out.

Itachi glanced at me and sighed. He drank some more of his tea and finished the last dango on his stick before standing up.

"Fine. I'll forgive you for being late this time Obito-nii." Then he stalked out the living room doors, onto the wooden engawa, before changing his shoes again, and going to the outdoor garden area.

"Yuuki-hime, do you want to see your brother do some ninja training?" Obito whispered. I excitedly lifted my arms in the air before making some enthusiastic baby noises. He laughed with me, then walked over to sit at the engawa, and sat me down on his lap. This way, I had a clear view of my brother doing some stretches on a gravel area.

It was a really long series of stretches. I don't think I even knew that people could bend that way? I guess it makes sense that shinobi, and shinobi in training need to be that flexible, considering their job scope. Once he was done, Itachi then ran laps around the training area. He kept going until he didn't have any energy left.

Isn't he just two years old? If they're already training him that hard, no wonder Uchiha's were such beasts in the shinobi world.

I gave Obito a questioning look, actively trying to use ninshū to ask my question. Obito then looked at me and patted my head, then he brought his attention back to my brother.

"Yuuki-hime, you're a very lucky girl you know?" He starts.

"Mikoto-sama told me about your little chakra issue. Ever since Itachi-bo knew you lacked physical energy, he kept pestering both your parents to start his training early so he could help make up the difference in your chakra." Obito turned back to me and smiled.

I was a bit shocked. Itachi did that because of me? I looked back to my brother who's soaked with sweat, but still kept going for another lap. A warm, fluffy feeling rose from my stomach to my throat, and I couldn't help but continue to stare. It was one thing to read about Itachi's love for his younger brother, Sasuke, and extrapolate that he would feel the same for me, but it's a whole other thing to actually know how much he cares. This feeling was so overwhelming, I nearly cried, but I didn't want to disturb my brother either.

Was this what Sasuke had felt as a child? No wonder he reacted the way he did when he thought his brother has betrayed him. No wonder the last semblance of sanity snapped when he realised it was all a lie, and that another person had cornered his brother to kill his whole family. Itachi didn't deserve such a terrible death.

As I digest these emotions, I felt the pangs of loneliness. After a few months of discovering ninshū, I got better at realising what emotions were genuinely mine, and what came from others. When I looked back up at Obito, he was still smiling, but his eyes looked a little sad. Right, at this stage, Obito only has his grandmother left as his close family. It felt bad to see him be this way, so I tried to send him the feelings I felt for my brother after what he had told me. It worked for a bit since he ended up focusing on me, but he wasn't completely distracted yet. So I decided to do a very bratty thing.

I took his finger from the hand he's holding me with and I slobbered all over it.

"Yuuki-hime! Oh come on don't do that okay? Ah damn where's that dummy… if you want to suck on something you should suck on that instead" Obito yelped.

Apparently in all that scrambling, he finally found the dummy and put it in my mouth. Clan pride here could be a bit much. Even the dummy wasn't spared from the Uchiwa symbol of our clan. Obito sighed. "At least I still have cute, little cousins like you and Itachi-bo. Although Yuuki-hime, you can't keep that cute title if you drool on people like that."

"Itachi-bo that's enough now! Wow! You've ran a whole two laps more than the last time I watched you. Good job!" Obito praised loudly. Itachi, still panting in a half crouch, struggled to push himself up before starting on his cool down stretches. When he finished, he took a towel Obito handed to him, then sat down on the space next to Obito. Obito then lifted me up and placed me in the care of my brother.

"It's lunch time now, so Itachi-bo please watch Yuuki-hime for a bit while I search for the bento Mikoto-sama left." Then he went inside the house, into the kitchen. Itachi nodded then tried to settle me in like Obito had, but it was hard since he was still two. No matter how developed he was for a two year old, it's still impossible for him to let me sit on his lap.

Giving up he decided to hold my hand instead. From there, I can feel a nice, warm sensation flowing from where our hands are joined. Although tired, Itachi still smiled at me. "Are you better now Yuuki? Don't worry Nii-san is here."

I realised then that he was giving me his chakra, which right after physical exercise, was very rich from the yang components I needed. This is bad. It's really bad. I think I might get a brother complex.

* * *

**Authors Note:**

**Glossary of terms in this chapter:**

Hahaue: An archaic and formal form of "mother" typically said in old, traditional families.

Chichiue: An archaic and formal form of "father" typically said in old, traditional families.

Seiza: A formal way of sitting where people sit on their legs on the floor or a pillow-chair.

\- hime: Suffix usually used for princesses, daughters of lords, or as in the context of this story, the daughter of a powerful family.

\- bo: A shortened suffix from -bochan, usually meant to address young boys from powerful families.

Hanami-dango: A japanese snack made out of three different flavoured mochi. (Plain, green tea, and pickled cherry blossoms)

Mitarashi-dango: A japanese snack made with plain mochi balls, covered in a sweet, soy sauce glaze. All dango goes well with tea.

An-dango: A japanese snack made with plain mochi balls, topped with a thick layer of red bean paste.

Engawa: A feature of Japanese traditional homes, a wooden hallway that goes around the compound. Attached to the engawa are some rain shutters, which protects the more fragile shogi doors in case of heavy rain or typhoon. If the shutters are down, the engawa is more similar to a hallway, but with it up, it's like a long, wooden balcony even though its on the ground floor.


End file.
